My Happy Ending
by Stoic Last Stand
Summary: Various Clarke/Lexa drabbles. Will often be centered around themes of soul mates or accidental children. The safe for work version.
1. Chapter 1: I'll Tie a String

**Author's Note:** So I've had bits and pieces of many stories on my computer for a while. I will warn you now that the pieces in here may not ever be finished. If they become their own story they will be finished, if just might take ten years. Feel free to comment on which parts you liked or didn't like, as your opinion does matter to me and will make a difference. I felt like I should stop hoarding ideas and share the love. Clarke/Lexa guaranteed.

* * *

 **I'll tie a string around my finger (so my soul will never forget you)**

Lexa is seven when the Commander dies. She has lived her life in a world created and maintained by the Commander, was born into it and doesn't understand living without the Commander. None of the people in her village do. They were born into a world created by the Commander and they exist with the certainty that when they die the Commander will continue to cherish what they themselves have loved and built and bleed for. This is the assurance of immortality that the Commander offers; this is the eternal assurance that built the Trigedakru after the bombs. Lexa is seven and has lived a life of safety and certainty when the string appears.

She is young, so young, and the thin red string that stretches from her finger to eternity is wondrous and amazing. Lexa shares her joy with her warrior mentor Anya, her sister, her brothers, her uncles, her aunts, and her parents. She is proud and happy to hold the string, showing it off to all the solemn faces that ask. Holding it makes her chest feel full like she has eaten the world. Her family is less happy, less naïve, and when the group from Polis finally arrive to see Lexa's beaming face and red string her father breaks down into tears. That is not the first hint that Lexa has really seen that says perhaps the red string isn't the best thing that's ever happened to her. The first was how solemnly Anya had looked at her when she'd proudly shown her First. Her mother hugs her, long and hard, before helping her onto a strong backed horse. Her sister won't look at her and her silent brothers don't look away. They are all older than her and though they have never seen this before they know what is happening. Her uncle and Anya lead her back with the strangers. His tattooed face set in stone. "Your fight continues," Uncle Gustus says softly as Lexa cries for the life she knew.

* * *

Lexa has seen twelve summers when she realizes that her advisors are wrong. She has lived in Polis for five years, studied and trained under a plethora of mentors. Anya is her one constant. Lexa was Anya's second before being chosen and will remain her second until Anya deems her a fit warrior. Anya is young for a First, but skilled enough that her advisors permit her to continue as Anya's Second. Lexa doesn't complain about the hours of extra practice and learning she has to endure as both Anya's Second and the Commander, it is their way. Anya is the only one to never tell her the lie that all others have. Lexa has come to realize that they, the women and men who train her to be the Commander they need, have eyes full of stone and mouths full of rot.

They lie and lie and it has taken Lexa five long years to realize that they build false hope for things which are impossible. False hope, Lexa decides, is the cruelest of cuts. It stings and burns and breeds more of itself until ones chest is empty and aching. She has watched a hunter tear the heart from a deer and her dreams are filled with blood, the taste of metal on her tongue, and her own empty torn chest.

For five years they have told her that when she is a warrior in true she will go on a quest to find the end of her string. It will guide her, they lie, to the other half of her soul and then she will be complete. Lexa believes them; she spends hours poring over old books and digging through alien memories in preparation. While they make her into Heda she makes herself into something else entirely. She builds her hope in the village she was born in, salvaged from the ruins of an older world and cherished like a newborn. Like Icarus before her she has reached too high and realizes it too late.

The Mountain Men come, drawn by the sounds of what she has built. They take her hope and leave nothing but ash, regret, and the still silent bodies of her family behind them. She gathers them, her family, her people, with her own hands and places them gently onto their pyre. She rubs soot stained hands against her eyes so that she can see through her tears when Anya helps her lower the flame to light wood and flesh on fire. Anya runs gentle hands through the dirty tracks of tears that trail over Lexa's cheeks and solemnly speaks to her. "Let your weakness show your strength." Lexa swallows in the scent of death and regret along with the realization her mentor has approved her life as a warrior.

* * *

Lexa is fourteen when she falls in love. She is a warrior true, has been for just over a year now, and her advisors can't fathom why she doesn't follow the string as all Commanders before her have. Gustus, her stalwart uncle, tells her often that he is prepared to journey with her. Anya, her mentor and only other remaining family (even by choice), never does. Lexa decided years ago that the string was nothing but a pretty lie (her hope that it could be anything else has been burned to ashes and tastes like death) and she is determined to love anyway. Costia teaches her that fate is not the only requirement for love and Lexa basks in her lessons.

Costia loves Lexa fiercely, deeply. She never asks, she has not the courage, but occasionally Lexa will catch her eyes slipping down to her finger. Costia is not where her string leads, is not who her soul needs, but she is the home Lexa has found for her heart and Lexa knows she will cherish it well.

The life of the Commander is short and often brutal. The Commander is a bulwark against all that would harm her people and such bulwarks cannot last forever. Though finding the person at the end of the string helps delay this, it is in their nature to be renewed. She is the youngest Commander chosen for the past sixty years and has already lived longer than the others chosen so young. Lexa has lived with the knowledge that she will die young and violently for more than half her life. Costia dies first.

Costia dies and Lexa kills her heart with her. If she cannot have fate and she will not have love then she must have peace. Her people must have peace; what other purpose exists for her? She descends upon the Clans like a hurricane and like a force of nature they bow to her will. In truth, all the Clans once asked the Commander to lead them. In the early years the small groups of survivors that would one day form the twelve Clans looked with envy upon the Commander's chosen people. The Commander's presence guaranteed survival, a precious commodity. Even after the Clans had formed into their own unique societies they remained envious of the immortal security of the Trigedakru. Not that the envy they felt meant every Clan wanted to be led by the Trigedakru Heda.

Lexa does not wage war again, not after the massacre she delivered to the Ice Nation. All the Clans know she is a capable warrior and a fantastic general. They do not question that should she wish it she could destroy a Clan completely. Her legend, of burned hearts and frozen black tears, has already made her warrior's mask a fearsome sight. They whisper tales of how her only tears are the ones that must be painted on. But war cannot win her peace, so she does not war.

Lexa grabs the string, _her string_ , in her hands and thinks heavily upon the idea of peace. She meditates for days, seeking a way. It isn't until she feels her string tighten like a noose around her finger that she finds the way. She tells herself that she did not find the way because of the string, that her destiny did not magically lead her to an answer. Lexa doesn't lie to herself, not really. The string hadn't led her anywhere, it had helped her walk.

Peace requires compromise, requires cutting little pieces of her ideals and desires off bit by bit until she was nothing but the hollow husk of the person she once was. For peace, for the safety of those other girls who run through fields of flowers with the bright laughter of lovers in their ears, for the memory of a girl who gave her whole self in exchange for the small pieces of her heart that Lexa could offer, for the children who's dark eyes twinkle with mischief as they play through shaded woods and sunny streets, for the black clad warriors who stand stubbornly human in front of arrows and swords meant for her, for the sweat of farmers as the toil into the Earth while cursing and praising it in each breath, for the blood of hunters as they grasp at their hand crafted spears and stare the animalistic fury of death in face, for the artisans who's worn hands and eyes full of beauty endlessly seek to remind their comrades that not all of life is just mere survival, for _her people_ Lexa cuts and cuts until only _Heda_ remains. And in the end of it all, for her (the girl they watched become a warrior, the warrior they watched become a legend), they become one people.

There are still fights, the Earth is as cruel as she is kind, and the greatest threat to her people is beyond her. The Mountain has stood for years before her and all have accepted that it will stand for years after. The bandits of the dead lands press dangerously at the life filled flanks of the Coalition. Winter's chill grasp is frozen steel at the warm necks of the Clans. And when Lexa climbs between her furs, long after the sun has dipped it's golden self below the rocks, she is just a woman.

She is a woman with more vision and drive than could be contained in a single self. She is a woman tied by the red string of fate itself to the stars and endless black above her. She is a woman destined for the sky. She is just a woman, so she fights the deadly clutch of winter with roads and trade, with fish from the seas being exchanged for furs from the plains, with the great city of Polis becoming the capitol of government and (more importantly) trade. She is just a woman, so she gathers an army of warriors, hundreds strong from every one of the twelve Clans, and leads them with drawn sword into the lands of death, leads them across blood soaked sand, leads them across the limp bodies of their enemies, leads them to break even the idea of capturing her people as slaves. She is just a woman so she looks upon the Mountain and _hates_ , for her people are being turned into monsters, her people are being hunted like prey, her people are dying and she does not know how to stop it. Lexa looks upon the Mountain and grasps her string tight, hoping for fate to be kinder in the future than it has been in the past. She is just a woman. Fate has its own plans.

* * *

Clarke falls to Earth in a shower of Fire, the very Air screams her arrival.


	2. Chapter 2: First Words Have Never Cut

**First words have never cut so deep (for you've stabbed me in the heart)**

Clarke's words: _"So, you're the one who burned three hundred of my warriors."_

Lexa's words: _"You're the one who sent them there to kill us."_

* * *

Lexa's words, the one her soul mate will one day speak to her, are the only sign her parents need to know that she will be a leader of warriors. She will send men out to kill, to die. It is her fate and her choice all wrapped up into one neat sentence. Lexa is four, too young to read the words that have formed her life, when they apprentice her to a warrior's second. Anya is nearly eleven and the second of a great leader. One day, Anya will lead in her leaders place and Lexa after her. It is their way and Lexa's parents are pleased that her fate is so clear. There are much worse words and much worse fates to have. They are blessed not to have the fearful words that all parents fear. "Sha Heda" are nowhere on their daughter and as she is their last to have words they rejoice that their family shall find both love and hopefully life aplenty.

Costia's words are light, faded and nearly gone from her skin. She has never heard her soulmate speak them and when she is ten she knows she never will. Winter, and the disease that came with it, was difficult that year and many of the Clans people die from the cold outside and the heat inside. Her speaker was but one of many. Costia mourns for what she may never have, as is the way of their people, and when she is done she sets aside dreams of the life she will not have. When she is older and in love she will feel thankful for the knowledge that as pleasant as the dream may have been, she at least knew it was gone. Lexa will feel no such relief.

For eighty nine years the Commander has born one word on their mark in perpetuity. It is regarded as proof that one carries the Commander spirit, for who else would be called 'Heda'? An ironically self-fulfilling prophecy as tradition quickly develops that the first words one speaks to the Commander contain the title. Even other Clans respectfully adopted the tradition, even if they dislike the Commander she is a powerful person. When she is alone and the night is deep with darkness Lexa will hide from the stars beneath her furs and curl upon herself for what little comfort she can glean and hold hope to her heart. Their tales speak of a golden age, before the bombs, where most people could find their Speaker easily. Even in those golden times there had been people whose Speaker could never be found. Every respectful utterance of 'Heda' feels like another dagger straight to her chest, another nail in the box that held her hope and soon holds only despair.

Costia helps. With Costia (laughing Costia) Lexa feels free. A battle hound released from its leash to frolic in a field of flowers. Costia will never meet her Speaker and it matters less and less that neither will Lexa. Costia helps, until her bloody head stares at her from the ground dead for Lexa's secrets and her love.

Lexa's first instinct is war. She has been trained for war, built for it, since the day of her birth (it is inked into her skin). Her war is great and terrible. She cuts ground from the hands of the Ice Nation and blood from their flesh. Her army moves with unmatched speed and in a matter of days, just a handful of days, she reaps more death than the entirety of her life before. She reaps so much death that she cannot see life anymore, cannot see its purpose or meaning. Friend and foe are just meat to her in her rage. At least, they are until she cuts down another enemy and sees a girl, a child really, fall in her place (she has Costia's laughing grey eyes before meeting Lexa and her same distant dead gaze after).

She locks herself away in her still silent tent, darkness and shame her only companions. Lexa has waged war on people, it is easy. Simple and relatively straightforward war on people is essentially just thinking of ways to kill the parts of them that fight. Their bodies or their spirits it matters not. But war on people has not brought her peace from Costia's ghost. War on people has brought only war, death, and misery. Blood has been spilled to follow down the blood already spilled and Lexa is choking on it.

Lexa has never had the words to explain what having the Commander spirit is like. Costia often asked but Lexa found that it was such visceral experiences that it existed beyond the words people have used to define their world. In the darkness Lexa experiences such a moment of clarity that it feels like the world is laid open before her. She has two options, two paths, two consequences to choose. In the first she wages war until the whole of the Ice Nation lays defeated before her and in her emptiness she turns to the other Clans with bloodied sword and broken soul. In the second she sheaths her sword and wages peace, such peace as her world has not seen, and unites all twelve Clans together in a single purpose.

Lexa allows herself a day of mourning, a day to feel the despair of her necessary sacrifice. She does not mourn for the girl who died from love of her. She does not mourn for the hundreds of people her war has killed. She mourns for what cannot be. In some other world, perhaps, Lexa would continue to wage war. In this other world, her title will become forsaken by her actions and strangers who have never met her will blame her for attacking them. There strangers will speak to her for the first time with the words "you're the one that sent them there to kill us". Words that the peace Lexa chooses to build will never see.

Lexa mourns what she has denied for one full day. Then she puts on her red sashed mark of station, her black tear stained warriors paint, her title of Heda and she makes peace upon the world. Within a year she has united all the twelve Clans. Within a year there is nowhere in the known world she can travel that the people do not shout "Heda" in awe filled voices. She is seventeen and she has chosen her people over her soulmate.

* * *

Clarke is born and her parents are incredibly grateful that her mother is Chief of Medical on the Ark. It makes it much easier to hide her words. They type something else, something innocuous, into the medical bay screen when prompted for 'words - fated'. No one may see Clarke's words; in this her parents are in complete agreement. People, babies, have been floated for less. It's not something anyone on the Ark ever talks about, most don't even realize, but one's fated words can be enough that the Council will not risk them being ever spoken. Clarke's words are more than enough, even without context.

Clarke is three when her mother spanks her so hard she can't sit down for a day, all for the crime of showing her best friend Wells her words. It's Clarke's first lesson, but not her last. She's seven and she knows that her father's first question to her when he comes home from working maintenance on the Ark will be 'did you keep them covered?' When she's eight her parents tell her what to say whenever anyone asks what her words are, she repeats the words back to them until she can picture each one in a moment in her mind. At ten they have her draw them over and over again until she can trace them in the dark. They never tell her why. On her twelfth birthday Clarke gets a small hand mirror from Wells as a present. She's smart and been able to read most words since she was much littler but Clarke has never been able to twist her body to read _her words_. The ones her soulmate will say to her when they first meet.

Clarke waits for her parents to go to bed before sneaking into the small bathroom they all share. She slips out of her too big pajama top and climbs onto the toilet. It is in the most awkward to see place, directly over her heart on her back. Through two mirrors and what felt like an infinitely of waiting Clarke finally, _finally_ , sees them. It takes her a few moments to understand what they say. It takes her no time at all to wish she hadn't. She tries to cut the false words off, the lie on her flesh. Lying in the bed in medical she wonders what fate could be so cruel as to have the first words her true love with ever say to her be "so, you're the one who burned three hundred of my warriors."

It's not until she does the right thing and is confined to solitary that Clarke thinks so heavily on what her words mean. Admittedly, she has spent years _not_ thinking of them so Clarke cycles through many other thoughts first. She is half way through drawing a sprawling charcoal tree when she wonders when the last time someone burned on the Ark was. Fire was surprisingly easy to deal with in space. As with all things it died quickly without oxygen. Clarke thinks she remembers her mom treating someone for second degree burns years ago, but she can't be sure it wasn't an electrical burn. 'Trees,' Clarke thinks as she smooth's out an imagined branch, 'trees burn. Trees and forests and the things in them burn. Spaceships made of metal don't.'

When she was eleven and playing with her schoolmates one of them had accidently hit her in the chest. She'd wanted to breathe, needed it, but couldn't force her muscles to relax enough to draw any of the precious air in. She feels like that now, like she could gasp and gasp for air and nothing would happen. The Ark is running out of air, _will_ run out of air. People do not burn in space, they burn on the ground. Her soulmate claims she will burn people.

Clarke laughs and laughs until her sides ache and tears stream down her face. There will be people on the ground, and she will be one of them. Somehow, that makes the realization that she will kill three hundred people just a little bit easier to bear (except that in the end it doesn't, because Clarke doesn't know anything about life on the ground yet).

* * *

They end up where they were always going to end up, where they were meant to end up, staring at each other across a tiled war room floor and the ghosts of three hundred burned bodies. Lexa speaks first, her tone harsh and controlled, purposeful as are all her actions. The blonde, the leader of the Sky people, pauses. Her blue eyes widen, pupils dilating, and Lexa has seen enough shock on and off the battle field to know what the paling of Clarke's skin means. Lexa waits patiently, pleased that the other leader hadn't been able to just shrug the lives (and deaths, so many deaths) of Lexa's people off.

When Clarke speaks her tone is firm. She chooses the words with her heart and knows they are the right ones when the Commanders breath catches slightly in her throat. Clarke nods, barely, and Lexa returns it. It is a silent acknowledgement of who they are, who they were always going to choose to be, to each other and the world around them. Then they move on. They are alike in that they are leaders first and people second. Leaders cannot have fate and destiny that does not help those they lead. Destiny is not for them, it is for other people, for someday, for almost.


End file.
